10-13-2010, 04:21 PM
A few things have changed since Alissa's thread regarding the comparisons of the Big 3 colleges.
For the newbies to the Forum, let me just tell you very briefly about the Big 3 before I show an updated comparison so you can choose the school that will benefit you the best.
The Big 3 is these 3 schools: Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, and Thomas Edison State College. You'll see all over the posts that no one calls em by their full name but instead abbreviates them respectively: COSC, EC, and TESC (its just easier). What makes these colleges special is that, as far as we know, they are the only 3 colleges in America that will accept basically all prior credits for an Associates's and Bachelor's Degree. Most colleges only accept some transfer credits. What's great about the Big 3 is that as long as the credits you earned were from a regionally accredited college or at least is ACE recommended, you can transfer everything to them and they will accept it towards your planned degree. So if you have credits lying around in different schools from years ago, you could actually throw em all to one of the Big 3 and you might be only a class or two away from an Associate's Degree.
Now the big seller of these schools besides their liberal acceptance of credits is that they accept ACE recommended College Level Examinations to satisfy certain credits. And there is no cap on how many exams will be accepted. So what that means is, Yes â as long as the tests you take satisfy the requirements for a certain degree, you can for the most part completely test out of everything for a Bachelor's (there are of course some exceptions â discussed later in the comparisons).
There are 4 main tests that we all discuss here on the forum, CLEPs (College Level Examination Programs), DSSTs (Dantes Subject Standardized Tests), ECEs (Excelsior College Examinations), and TECEPs (Thomas Edison College Examination Programs).
InstantCert has flashcards to help us study for these tests. But this forum can sometimes be more invaluable than the flashcards because people who have taken the test can let you know to a certain degree what to expect and tips for studying.
So most of us on here in the Big 3 discussion forum inform everybody about different ways theyâve earned credit and give us helpful advice or notifications about the certain schools.
For instance, FEMAs (Federal Emergency Management Agency courses) are free, independent, self-paced study courses that can sometimes be done in a day or two and are worth 1 credit each. Every school in the Big 3 requires a certain amount of Free Electives â because Free Electives can be ANYthing, you can fulfill that area just with FEMAs.
Another popular way to get certain credits is to sign up for ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) and take their ACE approved math and statistics courses. Depending on the major and the school, some even award upper level credit for the Intro to Statistics courseâwhich is great because there are not many upper level tests available in the CLEP/DSST list.
Another way to get some other credit is to take a Penn Foster (PF) or Louisiana State University (LSU) course. PF, although it is only nationally accredited, has 182 ACE recommended courses that the Big 3 will accept for credit. These are great because PF & LSU courses are done at-home, self-paced, & reasonably priced.
Also you can sign up for Straighterline which has online courses to fulfill certain areas of general ed like English or Math and get credits for em.
So that's the skinny on what generally everybody is doing on this forum and what were talking about.
About a year ago, Alissa prepared a comparison of the Big 3 to help those who were struggling to find out which to go to. In the past year, however, there have been a few changes and so I thought I would update that comparison for the newbies who are still looking for which school they wanna go to.
So first of all, you wanna ask yourself this: What do I want my degree in?
if you want you're degree in, for instance, Social Science, you're going to want to do the following:
Look at each schools' requirements for that degree. Do they offer it? How many prior credits do you have towards it? Does it have a capstone requirement? (a capstone is a 3unit class that you take near the end of your degree to basically sum up all that you have done and put a "reason" or "meaning" to the classes you've taken). Do the classes they're asking for look hard? How much is enrollment? Is this subject one where I can test out of everything with just CLEP/DSSTs?
Well that's where this general comparison can come in handy for you.
First off, let's talk about all the similarities:
1)Each of the 3 schools requires 30 Upper Level credits for a Bachelor's Degree (as of June 30, 2010, COSC now requires 30 UL credits instead of 15 â I was so bummed about that)
2)They all accept 60+ credits for an Associates and 120 credits for a Bachelor's degree.
3)They are all regionally accredited so you shouldn't have trouble transferring to Graduate school.
4)Of course you have to get approval from an advisor, but all 3 accept ACE recommended Penn Foster courses and LSU courses can transferred for credit.
5)All 3 accept FEMAs â however, 2 of em (EC and COSC) require that you transcribe the credits through a middle man college (Fredrick Community College is most popular to do that), whereas TESC accepts the FEMAs raw.
6)All 3 accept all CLEPs/DSSTs/ECEs/ and TECEPs for credit.
7)All have financial aid available.
8)All schools accept military credits towards free electives or sometimes even towards the major.
And now the differences:
EC and COSC both require a capstone course for almost every major. TESC does not require one for most majors.
People generally like the names Charter Oak State College or Thomas Edison State College more than Excelsior because they sound like something a legitimate college would sound like. Excelsior just sounds kinda fake (Other peoples' words and opinions, not mine⦠well, yeah mine too if I wanted to be picky, but who cares â it IS legit).
Excelsior will accept the ALEKS Intro to Stats course as Upper Level credit for most majors. COSC does accept the ALEKS courses, but does not award any of them upper level. TESC accepts it as technicially upper level, but I'll explain the technical part next.
For upper level credits, Excelsior pretty much just goes with whatever ACE recommends. So whichever DSSTs ACE says its upper level â they take it as such. COSC is more strict on what they accept as upper level. For instance, even though the DSST Principles of Finance is very difficult and upper level, COSC does not accept it as upper level, BUT they make it a requirement for a Business degree. So you still gotta take it and find some other way to get UL credit. And here's where TESC kinda beats the other 2. They have the 100, 200, 300, 400 assignment system: for any degree, you need 33 concentration credits â 6 of those credits can be at the 100 level (which every CLEP and DSST is at the very least), 9 of the credits can be at the 200 level (which very many of the CLEPs/DSSTs are) and 18 need to be at the 300 level (which they offer way more than just the standard 9 UL exams). So for TESC, it is way easier to acquire your UL credit because, for example, the Principles of Management CLEP is considered 300+ level at TESC while that CLEP is always LL at either of the other schools. So that means there are certain majors that you can completely test of.
EC and COSC require a 1 unit mandatory Information Literacy course. I think you can still Penn Foster out of it, but thatâs still 100$ out the door, and if you do it through the actual school, I think its over $300. TESC does not require that.
EC and COSC only requires 3 credits in the College composition general ed requirements. TESC requires 6. So if you took a Community College English course, you'd be fine for EC and COSC, but for TESC you would have to take another English course like Straighterline's English II or CLEP the English Comp w/ essay.
All have their different costs: TESC's enrollment is the highest at around 2ish grand, EC and COSC around 1ish grand. However, TESC courses are the cheapest at 170ish/credit while EC and COSC are around 300ish/credit. .
COSC, for every major (or concentration I should say), requires that you write an essay, submit a resume, and explain a rationale why you should be allowed to pursue the degree you want with them.
Also, COSC does not have majors, they have concentrations. There's really no difference, a bachelor's is a Bachelor's, but their degrees only say "General Studies" on them. For the other 2, they actually say the major like: "Business Administration" or "Liberal Arts".
COSC graduates people quarterly, EC and TESC graduate people every other month.
COSC has been recognized for its highly satisfactory customer service. EC has ups and downs. TESC mostly has downs â I've heard they're pretty rude.
For me personally, I'm going to go with TESC.
Here's why:
I have 22 CCAF credits that'll be accepted as Free Electives, and over 70 CC credits that they're going to accept towards the gen ed and major.
And I can completely test out of the credits necessary for a Liberal Arts degree JUST with CLEPs/DSSTs â which is great because CLEPs and DSST exams are free for me.
So what I'm doing (to avoid the annual fee) is: I'm going to test out of all the requirements first, then enroll, then immediately fill out the forms for graduation. No info lit course, no capstone. I'm enrolled for 2 months and I'm out with a Bachelor's and then I'm gonna have a Bachelor Party. Amen. It's going be $3,000 total for all that but its totally worth it â definitely beats having $50,000 in student loans that you're gonna spend your life paying off.
Hope this helps someone.
Good luck!
For the newbies to the Forum, let me just tell you very briefly about the Big 3 before I show an updated comparison so you can choose the school that will benefit you the best.
The Big 3 is these 3 schools: Charter Oak State College, Excelsior College, and Thomas Edison State College. You'll see all over the posts that no one calls em by their full name but instead abbreviates them respectively: COSC, EC, and TESC (its just easier). What makes these colleges special is that, as far as we know, they are the only 3 colleges in America that will accept basically all prior credits for an Associates's and Bachelor's Degree. Most colleges only accept some transfer credits. What's great about the Big 3 is that as long as the credits you earned were from a regionally accredited college or at least is ACE recommended, you can transfer everything to them and they will accept it towards your planned degree. So if you have credits lying around in different schools from years ago, you could actually throw em all to one of the Big 3 and you might be only a class or two away from an Associate's Degree.
Now the big seller of these schools besides their liberal acceptance of credits is that they accept ACE recommended College Level Examinations to satisfy certain credits. And there is no cap on how many exams will be accepted. So what that means is, Yes â as long as the tests you take satisfy the requirements for a certain degree, you can for the most part completely test out of everything for a Bachelor's (there are of course some exceptions â discussed later in the comparisons).
There are 4 main tests that we all discuss here on the forum, CLEPs (College Level Examination Programs), DSSTs (Dantes Subject Standardized Tests), ECEs (Excelsior College Examinations), and TECEPs (Thomas Edison College Examination Programs).
InstantCert has flashcards to help us study for these tests. But this forum can sometimes be more invaluable than the flashcards because people who have taken the test can let you know to a certain degree what to expect and tips for studying.
So most of us on here in the Big 3 discussion forum inform everybody about different ways theyâve earned credit and give us helpful advice or notifications about the certain schools.
For instance, FEMAs (Federal Emergency Management Agency courses) are free, independent, self-paced study courses that can sometimes be done in a day or two and are worth 1 credit each. Every school in the Big 3 requires a certain amount of Free Electives â because Free Electives can be ANYthing, you can fulfill that area just with FEMAs.
Another popular way to get certain credits is to sign up for ALEKS (Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces) and take their ACE approved math and statistics courses. Depending on the major and the school, some even award upper level credit for the Intro to Statistics courseâwhich is great because there are not many upper level tests available in the CLEP/DSST list.
Another way to get some other credit is to take a Penn Foster (PF) or Louisiana State University (LSU) course. PF, although it is only nationally accredited, has 182 ACE recommended courses that the Big 3 will accept for credit. These are great because PF & LSU courses are done at-home, self-paced, & reasonably priced.
Also you can sign up for Straighterline which has online courses to fulfill certain areas of general ed like English or Math and get credits for em.
So that's the skinny on what generally everybody is doing on this forum and what were talking about.
About a year ago, Alissa prepared a comparison of the Big 3 to help those who were struggling to find out which to go to. In the past year, however, there have been a few changes and so I thought I would update that comparison for the newbies who are still looking for which school they wanna go to.
So first of all, you wanna ask yourself this: What do I want my degree in?
if you want you're degree in, for instance, Social Science, you're going to want to do the following:
Look at each schools' requirements for that degree. Do they offer it? How many prior credits do you have towards it? Does it have a capstone requirement? (a capstone is a 3unit class that you take near the end of your degree to basically sum up all that you have done and put a "reason" or "meaning" to the classes you've taken). Do the classes they're asking for look hard? How much is enrollment? Is this subject one where I can test out of everything with just CLEP/DSSTs?
Well that's where this general comparison can come in handy for you.
First off, let's talk about all the similarities:
1)Each of the 3 schools requires 30 Upper Level credits for a Bachelor's Degree (as of June 30, 2010, COSC now requires 30 UL credits instead of 15 â I was so bummed about that)
2)They all accept 60+ credits for an Associates and 120 credits for a Bachelor's degree.
3)They are all regionally accredited so you shouldn't have trouble transferring to Graduate school.
4)Of course you have to get approval from an advisor, but all 3 accept ACE recommended Penn Foster courses and LSU courses can transferred for credit.
5)All 3 accept FEMAs â however, 2 of em (EC and COSC) require that you transcribe the credits through a middle man college (Fredrick Community College is most popular to do that), whereas TESC accepts the FEMAs raw.
6)All 3 accept all CLEPs/DSSTs/ECEs/ and TECEPs for credit.
7)All have financial aid available.
8)All schools accept military credits towards free electives or sometimes even towards the major.
And now the differences:
EC and COSC both require a capstone course for almost every major. TESC does not require one for most majors.
People generally like the names Charter Oak State College or Thomas Edison State College more than Excelsior because they sound like something a legitimate college would sound like. Excelsior just sounds kinda fake (Other peoples' words and opinions, not mine⦠well, yeah mine too if I wanted to be picky, but who cares â it IS legit).
Excelsior will accept the ALEKS Intro to Stats course as Upper Level credit for most majors. COSC does accept the ALEKS courses, but does not award any of them upper level. TESC accepts it as technicially upper level, but I'll explain the technical part next.
For upper level credits, Excelsior pretty much just goes with whatever ACE recommends. So whichever DSSTs ACE says its upper level â they take it as such. COSC is more strict on what they accept as upper level. For instance, even though the DSST Principles of Finance is very difficult and upper level, COSC does not accept it as upper level, BUT they make it a requirement for a Business degree. So you still gotta take it and find some other way to get UL credit. And here's where TESC kinda beats the other 2. They have the 100, 200, 300, 400 assignment system: for any degree, you need 33 concentration credits â 6 of those credits can be at the 100 level (which every CLEP and DSST is at the very least), 9 of the credits can be at the 200 level (which very many of the CLEPs/DSSTs are) and 18 need to be at the 300 level (which they offer way more than just the standard 9 UL exams). So for TESC, it is way easier to acquire your UL credit because, for example, the Principles of Management CLEP is considered 300+ level at TESC while that CLEP is always LL at either of the other schools. So that means there are certain majors that you can completely test of.
EC and COSC require a 1 unit mandatory Information Literacy course. I think you can still Penn Foster out of it, but thatâs still 100$ out the door, and if you do it through the actual school, I think its over $300. TESC does not require that.
EC and COSC only requires 3 credits in the College composition general ed requirements. TESC requires 6. So if you took a Community College English course, you'd be fine for EC and COSC, but for TESC you would have to take another English course like Straighterline's English II or CLEP the English Comp w/ essay.
All have their different costs: TESC's enrollment is the highest at around 2ish grand, EC and COSC around 1ish grand. However, TESC courses are the cheapest at 170ish/credit while EC and COSC are around 300ish/credit. .
COSC, for every major (or concentration I should say), requires that you write an essay, submit a resume, and explain a rationale why you should be allowed to pursue the degree you want with them.
Also, COSC does not have majors, they have concentrations. There's really no difference, a bachelor's is a Bachelor's, but their degrees only say "General Studies" on them. For the other 2, they actually say the major like: "Business Administration" or "Liberal Arts".
COSC graduates people quarterly, EC and TESC graduate people every other month.
COSC has been recognized for its highly satisfactory customer service. EC has ups and downs. TESC mostly has downs â I've heard they're pretty rude.
For me personally, I'm going to go with TESC.
Here's why:
I have 22 CCAF credits that'll be accepted as Free Electives, and over 70 CC credits that they're going to accept towards the gen ed and major.
And I can completely test out of the credits necessary for a Liberal Arts degree JUST with CLEPs/DSSTs â which is great because CLEPs and DSST exams are free for me.
So what I'm doing (to avoid the annual fee) is: I'm going to test out of all the requirements first, then enroll, then immediately fill out the forms for graduation. No info lit course, no capstone. I'm enrolled for 2 months and I'm out with a Bachelor's and then I'm gonna have a Bachelor Party. Amen. It's going be $3,000 total for all that but its totally worth it â definitely beats having $50,000 in student loans that you're gonna spend your life paying off.
Hope this helps someone.
Good luck!
-Kevin Cathy
Current Degrees:
B.A. in Liberal Studies (Thomas Edison State College)
A.A. in Business Administration (Sacramento City College)
A.A. in Social Science (Sacramento City College)
A.A. in Liberal Arts (Sacramento City College)
A.S. in Transportation (CCAF)
In Progress at Community College: Certificate of Achievement in Accounting
CLEPs/DSSTs taken & passed so far:
Principles of Supervision / Human Resource Management / Social Science & History / Here's To Your Health / Civil War & Reconstruction / Substance Abuse / Business Law II / Business Ethics and Society / Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / College Composition with Essay / Technical Writing / A History of the Vietnam War / College Mathematics / Introduction to World Religions
(54 credits in 7 months. Holla!)
Current Degrees:
B.A. in Liberal Studies (Thomas Edison State College)
A.A. in Business Administration (Sacramento City College)
A.A. in Social Science (Sacramento City College)
A.A. in Liberal Arts (Sacramento City College)
A.S. in Transportation (CCAF)
In Progress at Community College: Certificate of Achievement in Accounting
CLEPs/DSSTs taken & passed so far:
Principles of Supervision / Human Resource Management / Social Science & History / Here's To Your Health / Civil War & Reconstruction / Substance Abuse / Business Law II / Business Ethics and Society / Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / College Composition with Essay / Technical Writing / A History of the Vietnam War / College Mathematics / Introduction to World Religions
(54 credits in 7 months. Holla!)
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!
